Hisar by-poll: Bishnoi leads, Cong third

Initial leads show Kuldeep Bishnoi of the Haryana Janhit Congress was leading. He said that Anna should have targeted all corrupt parties and not just the Congress.

Ajay Chautala of the Indian National Lok Dal has accused the Congress of running a smear campaign against him. He was following Bishnoi at the second spot in the initial leads.

Congress' Jai Prakash who claimed the Anna factor has failed was coming in third in the early counting.

It has been Team Anna's first brush with electoral politics with Kejriwal campaigning against the Congress in these elections making it a referendum on the Jan Lokpal Bill despite reservations by other members of the team like Santosh Hegde.

The Opposition seems to have benefited indirectly from the anti-Congress tirade. Kuldeep Bishnoi, the political heir of former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal who before his death had defected from the Congress to launch his own outfit, is contesting these elections in alliance with the BJP. Kuldeep hopes to polarise the anti-incumbency and pro-Anna votes.

For the Congress which was on a weak wicket, the Hisar by-poll has turned into a high profile poll with Team Anna calling for its defeat. All eyes are now on the poll results to determine who the voters have decided to push to victory.